


Fidelity

by zoeticValidation



Series: This is the Thunderdome [3]
Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Anxiety, F/F, Heather McNamara - Freeform, How Do I Tag, Jared Klienman - Freeform, Meet-Cute, Mutual Pining, alana-centric, check out her music or at least the song fidelity, galaxy gals is just, i also love regina spektor, i double-dog dare you to validate me in a comment, i guess, i love how that's an actual tag, i love my girls so much, i'll have to do a zoe-centric one later, lots of other characters are mentioned as well, so beautiful, those two are the most important side characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-12-06 03:10:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11591694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zoeticValidation/pseuds/zoeticValidation
Summary: Just because Evan Hansen couldn't work up the guts to talk to Zoe Murphy after her sophomore jazz band concert, didn't mean that Alana Beck would have the same problem.





	Fidelity

**Author's Note:**

> _I never loved nobody fully_   
>  _Always one foot on the ground_   
>  _And by protecting my heart, truly_   
>  _I got lost_   
>  _In the sounds_
> 
> [Fidelity - Regina Spektor](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wigqKfLWjvM)

Alana had probably read every self help book imaginable, and had found that a vast majority of them advise using a schedule to organize a person’s cluttered life. Alana was never one to turn down solid guidance, so she had a week to week schedule that arranged her days according to. There were times allotted for studying, for practicing piano/violin, for her job, and for the myriad of other monotonous extracurriculars that she used to fill the hours and quell her ever worsening anxiety.

When your entire life was on a schedule, you didn’t really have time to pencil in fear and worry at any time. At least, that’s what Alana told herself.

Disregarding that, Alana also never really had any _free_ time, to do whatever she wanted with. Moments to herself were few and far between, not that Alana wanted any free time. If she had time to herself, then she’d be left alone with.. well, herself.

She’d be alone with nothing to do, and nobody to see her do it. Alana has been described as a busybody many times, and she’s perfectly fine with that description, because it’s true. Every second spent doing nothing was a second wasted when she could have been doing something to make an impact. Every second wasted was another second where Alana rapidly faded into obscurity, where nobody would know who she was and she wouldn’t matter.

Which is why she decided to go to the jazz concert one Friday afternoon in her junior year.

Alana was not a big jazz fan, but she had been helping out the jazz band with publicity around the school. Putting up posters all over the school, talking about their accomplishments over social media, and straight up having conversations with people about them. Alana never planned on actually coming to their upcoming spring concert though, she had a violin lesson scheduled at the same time.

However, her violin instructor had come down with an inconvenient, ill timed illness, and it had been too short notice to arrange for a substitute violin teacher to come in. That was an entire voided hour in her schedule, and Alana would need something to fill the gap there. It was either attend the jazz concert or stay at home alone while her parents were at work.

Alana prefered the former.

As Alana made her way into the auditorium, she noticed that there were many familiar faces in the crowd. Apparently, most of the school really appreciated the jazz band. The majority of the 100 student chorus had attended, the theatre kids too. Alana recognized Martha Dunnstock from chorus, sitting next to her sister Jenna Rolan. Martha was a good fr-acquaintance, smart, cheerful, and passionate. Alana knew that Martha’s parents were divorced, and that Jenna and Martha had chosen to live with different parents. 

Alana wasn’t quite as close with Jenna Rolan, seeing as the girl was a year below Alana. However, Alana was well aware of Jenna’s reputation as gossip. At Jenna’s side was Brooke Lohst, a friend of Jenna’s and one of the extremely popular girls in school. Next to Brooke was another woman who certainly didn’t attend their school, but looked like an older iteration of Brooke. _Probably her mother or her sister._

Sitting next to Martha was Veronica Sawyer, someone who Alana had extremely mixed feelings about. They shared a couple classes together like French and AP Calculus, and Veronica was very kind, but the problem was that Veronica was nothing short of a _genius_. Alana remembered in 6th grade, Veronica was supposed to skip straight to high school, all the middle school classes were too easy for her. Alana had been heartbroken, seeing as she had to work so _hard_ to maintain her straight A’s, and then she found out Veronica had never had to try a single day in her life.

Veronica had stayed with everyone else because she felt like she wouldn’t make any friends at the high school, but ever since, Alana had harboured suppressed jealousy towards her for years. But now wasn’t the time to dwell on any of that.

Alana tore her gaze away from Veronica and Martha, and her gaze landed on Christine Canigula, babbling animatedly amongst the rest of the theatre kids. She was making exaggerated gestures, using her whole body, and her voice was probably the loudest in the room. Alana didn’t know her personally, but had seen her phenomenal theatre performances. They had done Romeo and Juliet this year, and Christine had easily outshined all the other actors with her sheer talent. Her presence was nearly impossible to ignore, she lit up any room she walked into. Alana desperately longed for that kind of attention.

Alana took her seat somewhere in the middle of the second row and felt her phone buzz in her jacket pocket. She took it out and noticed that she actually had a couple texts that she’s been neglecting to answer.

\-- sincerelyMemes [SM] began texting athenasChampion [AC] at 16:29 [14/04/17] --  
  
SM: sup beck  
SM: dont tell any1 i told u this, but thx for lending me ur chem notes  
SM: i fuckin aced that test  
SM: w/ those notes, that exam didnt have shit on me  
SM: anyway i was wondering if after break we could be study buddies or some shit  
SM: like i gotta ton of friends and stuff i make time for  
SM: but my grades succ ass  
SM: txt me back when u get this  
  
\-- sincerelyMemes [SM] ceased texting athenasChampion [AC] at 16:31 [14/04/17] --

Alana cringed at Jared’s typing, and secretly regretted giving the boy her number. However, she’d probably take him up on the study buddy offer. Jared Kleinman was a student in need and it was Alana’s duty to help, despite his often frustrating idiosyncrasies.

Alana also checked another text from a couple of hours ago.

\-- innocentWannabe [IW] began texting athenasChampion [AC] at 15:38 [14/04/17] --  
  
IW: hi alana! (*u*)  
IW: i was just checking in to make sure that we’re still on for tutoring over spring break ?_?  
IW: i’m also going to need your address  
IW: unless you want to do the tutoring at the library but i’d rather just do this in private you know? *looks around nervously*  
IW: i don’t really want to risk heather or heather finding out that i need tutoring, they would tease me about it vmv  
IW: talk to you later o/  
IW: that was supposed to be me waving goodbye... but it just looks stupid =~=  
IW: *waves goodbye for real this time*  
  
\-- innocentWannabe [IW] ceased texting athenasChampion [AC] at 15:42 [14/04/17] --

Ah Heather McNamara, another acquaintance of Alana’s. She was actually pretty decent when she was separated from her clique and not pressured to act mean. Alana made a mental to reply to her later, she knew that Heather needed to get her grades up if she wanted to remain as the captain of the cheerleaders.

Just as Alana slipped her phone into her pocket, the lights in the auditorium dimmed down, and the lights on the stage came to life, illuminating the band. The audience’s murmurs descended into silence as the conductor introduced herself and the band. Alana recognized a few of the nervous members, but the one that really caught her eye was Zoe Murphy. Alana had done an English project with her brother Connor Murphy, with humorous and rewarding results, but had never really gotten to know the younger girl. Whenever Alana had been talking to the band instructor, she usually caught Zoe staring at her as if she had something to say, but she’d never actually come up to Alana to introduce herself. Alana didn’t think anything of it.

But, as the band launched into their first [song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXEDUEN9u9U), Alana slowly found herself becoming... enamoured with the beautiful guitarist. It was by the time that Zoe got to her solo that Alana realized that she might actually have a crush. Once the song was over, Alana had surpassed the initial haze of adoration, and only soul-smothering fear remained.

Alana had never had a crush before, _ever_. She’d always been too busy with all of her various distractions to form any kind of romantic attachment. She always figured that she was aroace and that was the end of that. No girls. No guys. Just work. How was she supposed to handle feelings like this for the first time?? In her mind, Alana knew it was completely nonsensical to be feeling this way. Zoe had never even talked to her, she was a year below Alana, and probably way out of her league.

There was a little pause as the instructor introduced the next [song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEwvE6xuhx8), but then the band was back at it again, sounding even bolder than before now that they’d gotten over their opening jitters. Alana spent the time admiring Zoe’s skills and trying to reason with herself. Her mind and her heart were at odds, And Alana didn’t know what side to take.

Stop it Alana, you don’t even know her.

But you want to know her.

You’d like it if she knew you too.

Alana didn’t register when the last [song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEwvE6xuhx8) of the night came on, but she did notice when Zoe had yet another sensational solo. She knew what she had to do. 

The instructor gave closing remarks and thanked the audience for attending, and then the concert was finally over. People in the audience began swarming the band members, eager to congratulate friends and family on a great performance.

Alana recognized another person in the audience actually, someone she’d neglected to spot before. Evan Hansen, dressed in something other than his usual khakis and polo, started ambling in the direction of Zoe Murphy. Alana could see the tension in his movements as he made his way to her. Alana sighed as she beheld the spectacle, no way was she going to go over there now. 

That was, until Evan seemed to panic, and then run as fast as his legs could carry him to the bathroom in the back of the auditorium. Alana blinked, and resolved to check in with him later. She turned back to Zoe, standing by herself while putting her guitar in its case. 

Now was her chance.

Alana approached Zoe and immediately stuck out her hand, even though Zoe’s back was turned.

“Hi! My name is Alana Beck. I couldn’t help but admire your guitar skills up there.” Alana declared, giddy.

Zoe whipped around and met Alana’s eyes. It took all of Alana’s self control not to get lost in those green eyes, with pupils rimmed in amber, both colors mingling so nicel-

“Oh hey! You helped us with getting the word out about the concert right?” Zoe inquired. She smiled at Alana returned her offered handshake. “That was really awesome, thanks a ton.”

Alana blushed and dismissed her praise. “It was nothing really! I’m sure what really drew the crowds was the spectacular quality of the music. Seriously, you’re all super talented, it almost makes me wish that I’d joined in the first place. Then again, jazz isn’t really my thing you know? I’m more of a classical music fan, and yes, I’m aware of how dorky that sounds.” Crap crap she was rambling oh my God stop talking st- “I play the violin and the piano, so I was surrounded by that type of music a lot as a kid. But after watching you up there, I’m really interested in what the guitar has to offer too. The way you played was so inspiring and impressive, just....” Alana trailed off, scouring through her extensive mental vocabulary to find a word to describe it. “...Wow.”

Zoe stared at her. _Crap it was never a good thing when people stared at you after you talked too much._ Alana almost started babbling again to fill the silence but Zoe broke out into a smile and beat her to it. “Thanks, solos always make me nervous but the payoff is totally worth it.” 

Zoe smoothed her sparkly black dress, even though it clearly didn’t need it at all, and a faint blush began to grow on her cheeks. “It’s really cool that you play the piano _and_ the violin though. God knows I’d never have the time to practice two instruments, I have way too much school work to do.”

That was when, like the awkward fumbling teenager she was, Alana blurted out, “I could totally help you with that!”

Zoe raised a curious eyebrow and responded, “Really? You’d actually do that for me?”

 _Welp, no getting out of this now._ “Yeah! I do tutoring for a lot of people actually. Educating people is a serious hobby of mine, not that I want to be a teacher when I grow up or anything. I just like having one on one educational conversations with people. I’ll have some time next week during spring break if you really want to.”

The words rushed out of Alana’s mouth like water from a faulty dam. She just had to go ruin any and all romantic prospects that she set out for didn’t she? Now Zoe would think that she just wanted to be a casual study-buddy or something. Or think that she was nerdy and lame for wanting to study during _vacation_.

Zoe didn’t seem perturbed by Alana’s offer though. In fact she looked elated. “Wow that would be awesome. My mom wanted to go on some dumb couple’s retreat with my dad during break, and I already know Connor’s gonna avoid me as much as humanly possible, so it’d be cool if I could get some work done. I’ve got like a million projects due after break.” Zoe remarked.

Alana smiled through her hidden nerves. “Great! When I get home, I’ll text you my address and the time.”

“Also, how much does the tutoring cost?” Zoe questioned. Alana had never charged for tutoring, but she did have an idea. 

“Hey, maybe you could give me some guitar lessons in exchange? Knowledge about a subject is way more valuable than money in my opinion.” Alana suggested.

Zoe’s smile widened. “Sweet.” Zoe slung her guitar case over her shoulder and started to walk towards Jenna and Brooke, who were standing a little ways away and watching their conversation. “See you around Alana.”

As Zoe re-merged with her 2 other friends who clearly started squeeing about something that caused Zoe to blush, Alana gave herself a little mental pat on the back.

It was a start.

**Author's Note:**

> \- "how many times can i use myriad?" the series  
> \- lets pretend that an hour long high school performance has like 3 songs in it  
> \- i dont have a beta, so correct me on any spelling/grammar mistakes  
> \- i love and appreciate every comment you guys are way too nice  
> \- i don't know why i threw jared and heather in there it just felt right  
> \- the veronica skipping to high school thing is straight from the heathers movie  
> \- if you wanna know why the fricc jenna and chloe are there then read the politics of popularity from this series


End file.
